Cat Poem

There’s a woman who lives near me 

Alone in an old apartment.

A little run down, her and her abode.

From the shade of our quiet tree-lined street

I see her dusty balcony during my evening walks

A rickety wicker chair piled high with

a decade’s worth of newspapers.

On slow Sunday mornings

When half our street is still asleep

Her cats luxuriate in the golden sunlight

Streaming through the trees

The dust motes of the balcony 

Of no consequence to them.

 

Every once in a while I see her on the street

To and fro on some errand 

Her clothes unironed,

Her hair an afterthought.

Looking like the smell of a thousand mothballs

In forgotten trunks full of old saris.

 

I have to feed the cats,

she tells me as she shuffles hurriedly away.

And I thought of those cats

Happily sunning themselves

And the woman furtively lurking

in the depths of the old dusty apartment.

 

(NaPoWriMo2024)